Topic: Bill Bruford Autobiography due in 2009 Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:31

The DGM website has announced that Bill Bruford has written an autobiography. The title is "Perpetual Change" and the cover says "My four decades at the heart of Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, and more". Amazon.com says the scheduled release date is March, 2009 and they are accepting pre-orders now.

Indeed. Bruford has often said he didn't want to work with Squire because he just didn't enjoy bassists "who keep you waiting all the time". I hope we'll get the full story now. There must be loads of stories from someone who's worked with Yes, Genesis, Crimson, Gong, National Health, Allan Holdsworth, Django Bates AND Larry Coryell - to name just a few. Hope he won't be too discreet.

I found Bruford's words in the recent Genesis book pretty interesting--he pretty much called himself a pompous prig while touring with Genesis, and that he's matured a good bit since then. He doesn't seem to be one to pull punches . . . This could be very interesting!

I saw Bruford in concert in 79 and 80 in San Francisco with his band "Bruford" and it was a great great experience. At this point not only was he my favorite drummer but the Bruford band and their music was my favorite as well.

The first Earthworks is his best. Hope he talks about the realreason why Peter Banks got sacked from Yes. Also I`ve found that he is one of the few drummers who can really blend an extended drum solo into a piece. I`ve heard him comment on more than one occasionthat he`s not too fond of them.

An altogether grander 1994 project centred on Neil Peart, the charming and successful drummer with Canadian rockers Rush, who had taken it upon himself to make a series of recordings of Buddy Rich’s music. Buddy had passed away in 1987, but The Buddy Rich Orchestra was still very much a working organism, featuring several of the musicians who were in the band when their leader was alive, most notably tenor saxophonist Steve Marcus. The idea was for an A-list of the most celebrated drummers of the day to do a couple of tunes each from the standard Rich Orchestra repertoire. The resulting CDs were to be called Burning For Buddy, and time was duly booked at the Power Station recording studio in Manhattan.

For reasons best known to himself, Neil thought I’d be suitable for this project and got in touch to explain the plan. He suggested a couple of tunes, and I, with what must have seemed like arrogance but in fact was that old insecurity, said fine, but how about one of his and one of mine? Neil asked for a demo of my proposed tune, which was duly approved, and I went off to see English trumpeter and arranger Chris Batchelor to have the composition transcribed.

The night before the sessions passes in the by-now increasingly common fog of red wine, jetlag, and Temazepam, and I struggle to my feet, exhausted, at about seven the next morning to the mood-music of Manhattan traffic. When I arrive at the Power Station, it is like a dentist’s waiting room, with half a dozen of the best drummers in the world sitting around leafing through magazines and, on a variable scale, dealing with their demons. Steve Gadd and Steve Ferrone are up next, Kenny Aronoff and Simon Phillips have completed, and I will be next up after Ferrone.

Each musician has been allotted two hours to move his drums in, set-up and soundcheck, rehearse each tune once, and then record them. To the layman this might seem like a comfortable schedule – to the crack studio musicians like Gadd and Ferrone it might appear a little tight. But it seems to me, with my leisurely art-rock background in which it took two hours to get the sandwich order straight, let alone move any instruments into a studio, that I have a better chance of getting a camel through the eye of a needle than I have of completing this on time.

Ferrone comes out of the dentist’s office with a look of acute relief. The crew throw his drums more or less unceremoniously out of the room and mine into the place that his had previously occupied. The mics are repositioned, and thanks largely to a good studio, a great drumset, and an exceptional recording engineer, we spend no time at all making sure the drum sound is up to scratch. In front of me is a world-famous big-band stuffed with excellent jazz musicians. Behind me is a control-room with Peart producing. The place is jammed with players peering down at the proceedings, probably just interested to hear the only original composition on the album, but who are, I am convinced, secretly hoping the British guy will never get off the runway.

We start with my tune ‘Lingo’. I hand out the music to the 16 players. The high trumpet does what I’m told the high trumpet always does: he speed-reads through his chart to see if there are enough high notes to justify his ride in on the subway. These are the high-wire artists of the jazz orchestra and they must be allowed to display their skills, or they may become petulant. There is a questioning frown on the bass player’s face, but he doesn’t say anything, so I pretend I haven’t noticed. We run it down once, and I’m cleared for take off.

I count the tune in and we lurch down the runway, but 30 seconds in there is a malfunction in the trumpets and trombones, and we have to abort. The written music is intricate and involves some complex rhythmic interplay between the two sections. It’s playable as is, but without serious practice it’s not going to sound good. The question comes to me: do I want it as is, or do I want to cut? I want to cut, naturally – anything to make it sound good – but I’m uncertain exactly what, where, and how much to excise. Sharks are circling, sensing a wounded prey, and I’m at their mercy. There is a heavy silence while about 25 people wait for me to make a decision. I turn to the lead trumpet, who seems like a friendly face, someone who is not going to let this last forever, and ask for his recommendation. My acknowledgement that I need help is well-received, useful suggestions are made, and the offending phrases cut in trombones and saxes, leaving the trumpets to make the running at that point.

I return to the drums, we run the difficult passage, which now seems smooth and efficient, and the producer in the control room, with a very large clock on the wall, patiently suggests we go for a take. “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no foolin’ around,” as Talking Heads might have said. The whole thing is being video’d, and cameras and unbearably harsh lighting appear to be everywhere. We are by now at about the hour mark, and the first take of ‘Lingo’ is going well. The sound of the band in the headphones is exhilarating, and I begin to relax into the groove as I make a note that I must do more of this. We safely negotiate the tricky rapids at letter B and Steve Marcus launches into his solo. Then I catch sight of the bass player…

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